Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

Note to Self: We hear a lot about the military revolution at the end of the sixteenth century: we hear about Gustaf Adolf, about Maurice van Nassau, even about (the earlier) Gonsalvo de Cordoba. We hear about the effective use of firearms and cannon. Discipline. Logistics—both ammunition supply and keeping guys fed and (relatively) plague free. And we hear of the victories won by Maurice van Nassau and Gustaf Adolf of Sweden over the half-modernized Spanish and Austrian armies, just as we hear of the victories won a century earlier by Gonsalvo de Cordoba and his half-modernized tercios over the unmodernized Italian mercenaries and French cavaliers. But we don't hear much about similarly striking victories won a little bit earlier somewhat further to the east...

Note to Self: Industrial Policy in Korea: Readings:

Alice Amsden (1989): Asia's Next Giant https://www.google.com/books/edition/Asia_s_Next_Giant/j0E9qKIqD-cC chs. 1-6...

Nathan Lane (2019): Manufacturing Revolutions: Industrial Policy and Networks in South Korea https://delong.typepad.com/lane-korea.pdf...

L.E. Westphal: (1990): Industrial Policy in an Export Propelled Economy: Lessons from South Korea’s Experience https://delong.typepad.com/files/westphal.pdf

Ha-Joon Chang (1993): The political economy of industrial policy in Korea." Cambridge Journal of Economics 17.2 (1993): 131-157 https://delong.typepad.com/files/chang.pdf

Rodrik, Dani. "Getting interventions right: how South Korea and Taiwan grew rich." Economic Policy 10.20 (1995): 53-107 https://delong.typepad.com/files/rodrik-korea-taiwan.pdf

Note to Self: When did The Upshot repurpose itself as being not "explainer journalism" but as being "news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life"?: The Upshot Newsletter https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/signup/UP: "politics, policy and everyday life

Note to Self: The continued strength of landed military service aristocrats in government left Europe on the eve of World War I potentially vulnerable to currents of thought that were anti-liberal, pro-hierarchy, and authoritarian...

Note to Self: Lessons from East Asian Development: Japanese Industrial Policy: Readings:

• Oriol Pons-Benaiges (2017): Did Government Intervention Target Technological Externalities? Industrial Policy and Economic Growth in Postwar Japan, 1964-1983 https://delong.typepad.com/06_tech_externalities_japan.pdf

• Chalmers Johnson (1982): MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy in Japan https://archive.org/details/mitijapanesemira00chal

• Paul R. Krugman (1984): The U.S. Response to Foreign Industrial Targeting krugman-targeting.pdf...

• Paul R. Krugman (1983): Targeted Industrial Policies: Theory and Evidence https://delong.typepad.com/krugman-kc.pdf

• Nathan Lane: Manufacturing Revolutions: Industrial Policy and Networks in South Korea https://delong.typepad.com/lane-korea.pdf

Note to Self: Polanyi's problem is he writes badly. Hyman Minsky had next-to-no footprint until Charlie Kindleberger took Minsky's view of the world and turned it into a readable history. There's definitely space to do something like that with Polanyi—fictitious commodities, the market wants to treat your community, your occupation, your security of employment as market commodities, but people believe they have rights beyond market rights when the market gives rights only to those who control resources useful for making things for which rich people have serious Joneses...

Note to Self: Trying (without much success) to gain some intuition with respect to what Gini coefficient mean:

https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/braddelong/LS2019/blob/master/2019-09-18-notes-on-gini-coefficients.ipynb

Note to Self: 30-Year Treasury bonds continue astonishingly, bizarrely low:

It is no longer the case that they are at their lowest levels ever, but this from Dan Alpert still makes immense sense: Dan Alpert: "We awake this morning to an all-time low yield on 30 year US Treasury bond: 2.107%. This is nearly 40 basis points below the average interest rate on all marketable treasury securities https://t.co/j3trQPFxfN. It is time to borrow and invest in infrastructure #LockItIn:

Note to Self: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents: "Since the recession a decade ago, free-market economics (also known as neoliberalism) has been questioned on multiple fronts. As the dominant governing strategy for the past 40 years—including the Democratic administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—the Left today is increasingly challenging neoliberalism. Indeed, as the primaries approach, many former Clinton and Obama officials are even openly challenging the 'power of markets' belief. In his new book, A Crisis Wasted, Reed Hundt, chair of the Federal Communications Commission under Clinton and a member of Obama’s transition team, makes the argument that Obama missed an opportunity to push for a new progressive era of governance, a miscalculation that ultimately hobbled his administration. Hundt is not alone on this score. In a viral Vox article earlier this year, former Clinton administration economist Brad DeLong said that the Democratic Party has and should move past market friendly neoliberals like himself. Please join us for a very special conversation between Hundt and DeLong about the limits of, and challenges to, free-market economics with Joshua Cohen, co-editor of Boston Review. WHERE: Outdoor Art Club, One West Blithedale, Mill Valley, CA 94941. WHEN: Monday, September 9, 2019, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm (PST)...

Note to Self: The Ten Americans Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War: Hoisted from the Archives](https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/02/note-the-ten-americans-who-did-the-most-to-win-the-cold-war-archive-entry-from-brad-delongs-webjournal.html): Harry Dexter White... George Kennan... George Marshall... Arthur Vandenberg... Paul Hoffman... Dean Acheson... Harry S Truman... Dwight D. Eisenhower... Gerald Ford...

#notetoself #2019-09-04

Note to Self: Parliament-Xit:

#brexit #notetoself #orangehairedbaboons

Note to Self: A not atypical tankie: Paul M. Sweezy:

An Obituary (2004): Marxist Economist Paul Sweezy Is Dead: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal: I would like Paul Sweezy to be remembered for the following passage: "The publication in 1952 of Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR would make possible today a more satisfactory reply.…In the light of [Stalin’s] explanation…I would like to amend the statement which Mr. Kazahaya criticizes.…[The amended statement] conveys my meaning more accurately than the original wording and is, I think entirely in accord with Stalin’s view." (Paul Sweezy (1953): The Present as History (New York: Monthly Review Press), p. 352.) Paul Sweezy called himself an intellectual. Paul Sweezy publicly revised his opinion on an analytical issue in order to agree with the position taken by a genocidal tyrant. Fill in the blank: Paul Sweezy was a ...

Note to Self: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents: "Since the recession a decade ago, free-market economics (also known as neoliberalism) has been questioned on multiple fronts. As the dominant governing strategy for the past 40 years—including the Democratic administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—the Left today is increasingly challenging neoliberalism. Indeed, as the primaries approach, many former Clinton and Obama officials are even openly challenging the 'power of markets' belief. In his new book, A Crisis Wasted, Reed Hundt, chair of the Federal Communications Commission under Clinton and a member of Obama’s transition team, makes the argument that Obama missed an opportunity to push for a new progressive era of governance, a miscalculation that ultimately hobbled his administration. Hundt is not alone on this score. In a viral Vox article earlier this year, former Clinton administration economist Brad DeLong said that the Democratic Party has and should move past market friendly neoliberals like himself. Please join us for a very special conversation between Hundt and DeLong about the limits of, and challenges to, free-market economics with Joshua Cohen, co-editor of Boston Review. WHERE: Outdoor Art Club, One West Blithedale, Mill Valley, CA 94941. WHEN: Monday, September 9, 2019, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm (PST)...

Note to Self: I Want My Country Back!: It is a really strange situation. It has a lot of "if he were nots":

• If he were not president, Trump’s family would already have moved for a guardianship ad litem...

• If he were not so authoritarian, we would be profoundly sad that someone—hate him, love him, simply be amused by him—has been such an entertaining celebrity...

• And if he were not so deranged, we would be in the streets demanding the constitutional order be observed and wondering just what we should do when someone begins taking him seriously and literally when he says that the Washington Post and Catherine Rampell are the enemies of the people, when he says what we really need to do is get rid of the judges, when he says we should let the guys in the mirrored sunglasses in the security agencies do their thing.

It is not an America I ever thought that I would live in, I must say...

Note to Self: Talking points for Squawk Box: Business, Politics, Investors and Traders, 7:45 AM EDT 2019-08-24:

Note to Self: The market has now delivered 100 basis points of easing in the ten-year Treasury window since the end of last October. On the 30-year bond, you would have made a 20% profit if you bought it last October and sold it today, compared to a 3.5% profit on the S&P Composite over the same period. That is a major, major sentiment shift. That means that a number of people short debt with riskier operations than the S&P Composite are about to face margin calls and rollover difficulties. We will shortly see how solvent the market judges them.

No, it is not yet August 2007. But it is much closer to August 2007 than I expected to see for another generation:

Note to Self: Why was Jonathan Weisman's economic policy reporting for the Washington Post so execrable back in the mid-2000s? A person who was, as they say, very, very, very, very, very familiar with the matter:

Jonathan's big problem is that he's not that deep into the issues, and he has no backup. There's nobody that he can go to in that building to tell him 'this was how X was trying to mislead you' or 'this is Y's history' or 'be very careful here: if you get this detail Z wrong, they'll come down on you extremely hard'...

In retrospect, I think we can conclude that it was not that Weisman was mismanaged by the Washington Post editorial staff: I'm happy to believe that there was gross mismanagement, but gross mismanagement does not lead one to contrast the view of Paul Krugman with that of Donald Luskin or of a White House aide who does not dare give his name and say "economists furiously debate". That is someone who has made a deliberate decision to make their career by being a complaisant mouthpiece for insider anonymous sources

Note to Self: Let me say that I am 100% behind Roxane Gay here. When Jonathan Weisman was covering economics and monetary policy, he was a "Paul Krugman and Donald Luskin disagree about the shape of the earth: who can tell who is right?" guy. Those of us who talked to him took the incompetence for granted—and more than that: a willful desire to not understand the issues because then he might be unable to properly suck up to the sources he wished to suck up too.

Given that history, my mind is closed on the incompetence question. And I'm happy to listen on the racism one:

Roxane Gay: "Guys, Jonathan Weisman emailed me to say he thinks I owe him an 'enormous apology'. The audacity and entitlement of white men is fucking incredible. I am legitimately shocked. Like. What? He also emailed my assistant. WTF? And he also emailed Harper Collins. Uhh, @nytimes, get your boy...

Note to Self: On the one hand, we are worried because we know we are not terribly rational animals, and we know that big data can find correlations. We thus fear people will then use those correlations to hack our brains for their profit or advantage—and for our loss. we fear they will learn how to hack our brains to get us to think, say, do, or buy things that are not in accord with our best selves or our long-term goals—things that we will later on profoundly regret.

On the other hand, this morning, while I was waiting for my first appointment, I was served up nine bra ads—and not because I have desires to cross-dress that I have not yet admitted to myself. It was because Big Ad Data is not smart enough to figure out: "although this internet identity is associated with this credit card number, the person surfing the web right now is not the person who buys the bras"...

Cat Handling: General Considerations: The cat is faster and has sharper teeth and claws than you do. It has no "code of ethics" or consideration for its own future. In a fair fight it will win:

1. DON'T FIGHT A CAT
2. USE YOUR BRAIN
3. USE DRUGS

Note to Self: There are immense possibilities in China.

On the screen earlier today we saw Chinese military politician Peng Dehuai, who did command the army that inflicted the greatest defeat on an American army ever in the retreat from the Yalu River. But during the years of the Great Leap Forward he was the Chinese politician who did most to serve the people. And we are desperately short of his like in both Beijing and Washington, both of which are facing very different but, I think, equally grave crises of governance. Sp here is a poem he wrote in 1958 on an inspection tour of the Great Leap Forward famine:

Grain scattered on the ground, potato leaves withered;
Strong young people have left to make steel;
Only children and old women reap the crops;
How can they survive the coming year?
Allow me to raise my voice for the people!

Note to Self: Perhaps Britain's supersession by America was not inevitable. In 1860 the United States had a full-citizen population of 25 million, and Britain and its Dominions had a full-citizen population of 32 million. By 1940 the full-citizen numbers were 117 and 76 million. But the pro-rated descendents of the full citizens as of 1860 were 50 and 65 million, advantage Britain and the Dominions. Up to 1924 New York welcomed all comers from Europe and the Middle East. London and the Dominions were welcoming only to northern European Protestants.

A Britain more interested in turning into Britons or Canadians the migrating Jews, Poles, Italians, Romanians, and even Turks who do not happen to be named Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson—who bears Turkish Minister of the Interior Ali Kemal's Y and five other chromosomes, and hence is, by all the rules of conservative patriarchy, a Turk— would have been much stronger throughout the twentieth century.

Perhaps it would not be in its current undignified position.

Note to Self: "Consider Alasdair Macintyre... In the beginning: boring naive and jejune Marxisant socialist... Today: boring, naive, and jejune neo-Thomist... But in the middle, along the trajectory, Herbert Marcuse: An Exposition and a Polemic through Against the Self-Images of the Age to Hegel and After Virtue... what a thinker! what a powerful awareness of the attractiveness of different positions! what deep insights generated by position and opposition—even if he never gets to aufhebung—composition!...

Note to Self: A historical question I want answered: What difference did it make for medieval economies—and for the relative prosperity of the Muslim world in the middle ages—that Muhammed was a merchant?

Note to Self: Is there somebody I should read who has thought deeply and powerfully about these issues?: Homer's Odyssey Blogging: "Like Little Birds... They Writhed with Their Feet... But for No Long While...": I love [David] Drake. I love the Odyssey. But I am distressed to find myself somewhat more sympathetic than I want to be with Plato's recommendation that only "hymns to the gods and praise of famous men" be allowed in the Just City because allowing more would lead to sensation and melodrama and would excite the baser instincts of men. And I have now opened up the following can of worms: How do we educate people to read—listen—watch—properly, so that they become their better rather than their worse selves? Mind you, I do not wish that the Odyssey were otherwise (or that David Drake wrote otherwise). But I do wish we teachers taught better how to read—and listen—and watch...

Note to Self: Playing with Sargent-Stachurski QuantEcon http://quantecon.org: I have long been annoyed with the standard presentation of the Solow Growth Model because the state variable k—capital per effective worker—is not observable in the real world, while the capital-output ratio κ is. Moreover, the steady-state capital-output ratio has an easy to remember and intuitive description: it is the savings rate divided by the economy's steady-state investment requirements. Capital per effective worker has no such intuitive description. Plus the capital-output ratio exhibits exponential convergence to the steady-state. Capital per effective worker does not:

Note to Self: The question is whether our current market values are in fact "Pangloss" values, and are going to come back to earth at some point, with the shock provided by that return to earth providing a nasty expectational shock that will cause a depression—but with that return to earth delayed long enough to plausibly reelect Trump—or whether current values are appropriate given underlying fundamentals, and are in fact about the only thing keeping us out of a depression right now...

My sense is that "we need to raise reserve requirements in a boom" is very good policy; but that "we need to pop this bubble" is almost always very bad policy.

And we do not appear to have any (large) equity bubble. The weirdness is all in bond prices:

Note to Self: The establishment-survey payroll-employment number (red line) contain within them a guess as to how many newly-formed forms there are that have not yet caught up to and entered the payroll system. When a recession starts, that guess at the fudge factor can be way high.

On the other hand, the household-survey employment number (blue line) has a lot more statistical noise in it.

The bet right now is that late last year the household survey interviewers just happened by luck on a bunch of people enthusiastic about working, but nothing is guaranteed. It might be that the firm birth-death guess is leading the establishment survey (red line) astray:

F--- you, @jack:

Note to Self: Lecture: African Retardation https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0O8TxLOzM1gvGwSZYkWBV97rw:

Note to Self: G-7 national income per capita growth since 1800, according to Hans Rosling's http://gapminder.org: https://www.icloud.com/numbers/07Q5v0jKa1sohBHiO8l3Np9Gw

Twitter Thread: "He has waged cruel War against human Nature itself...: Annette Gordon-Reed @agordonreed: "So many of the grievances in the Declaration could be challenged. Heck, the whole enterprise of presenting themselves as having been oppressed/enslaved by the British was wifty...

...To have a foundational document describe the evil of what had happened to Africans could have been quite meaningful. Think of the use that has been made of “all men are created equal” as an affirmation. In the understandable zeal to catch TJ out on hypocrisy, historians have missed the recognition of the violation of the human rights of Africans. We can go on and on about whether TJ sincerely believed these things, as if American history were some gigantic revival meeting. But words matter, and sincerity is overrated...

Twitter Thread: @RBrookhiser "When Mao's economic policies associated with the Great Leap Forward caused a nationwide famine, Peng became critical of Mao's leadership. The rivalry between Peng and Mao culminated in an open confrontation between the two at the 1959 Lushan Conference. Mao won this confrontation, labeled Peng as a leader of an 'anti-Party clique', and purged Peng...

...Following the advent of the Cultural Revolution, Peng was arrested by Red Guards. From 1966–1970, radical factions within the Communist Party, led by Lin Biao and Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, singled out Peng for national persecution, and Peng was publicly humiliated in numerous large-scale struggle sessions and subjected to physical and psychological torture in organized efforts to force Peng to confess his "crimes" against Mao Zedong and the Communist Party. In 1970 Peng was formally tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1974. After Mao died in 1976, Peng's old ally, Deng Xiaoping, emerged as China's paramount leader. Deng led an effort to formally rehabilitate people who had been unjustly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and Peng was one of the first leaders to be posthumously rehabilitated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peng_Dehuai...

Twitter Thread: "If you are hanging with Mt. Pelerin...: Daniel Kuehn: "@delong asks why I don’t put stock in 4-6, which I’ll try to answer here. It’s not that glamorous because it’s basically that there’s no evidence (though I’ll try to say more). It’s important to realize Brad agrees these are not major drivers...

Note to Self: F--- you, @jack. Twitter keeps—somehow—reversing my view from "Latest Tweets" to your algorithmic "Home", showing me first tweets I am likely to engage in. But tweets I am likely to engage in are not the tweets I want to see. You are hacking my brain, @jack—and not in a good way.

Thus you have made yourself my enemy: Things that advertise on Twitter I will not buy. Opportunities for me to cheaply degrade your reputation and reduce your wealth I will gladly take advantage of.

Quite stunning that you have developed such potentially useful tool, @jack, and yet have managed to make yourself so thoroughly my enemy, isn't it? One might say it requires a close-to-unique talent...

Note to Self: If, after the EMP data wipeout and the collapse, future raccoon historians of fascism dig up this statue, they are going to be very confused:

Note to Self: Richard M. Johnson (1780-1850), Vice President and Senator, and Julia A. Chinn (1790-1833), slave and châtelaine:

• Wikipedia: Richadf Mentor Johnson

• BlackPast: Julia Ann Chinn

• Keven McQueen (2001): Offbeat Kentuckians: Richard M. Johnson

• Leland Winfield Meyers (1932): The Life and Times of Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky

• David Petriello: The Days of Heroes Are Over: A Brief Biography of Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson

• James A. Padgett (1940): The Letters of Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky

• Abraham Lincoln (September 18, 1858): Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charrleston, Illinois: "I have never seen to my knowledge a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality.... I recollect of but one distinguished instance... the case of Judge Douglas' old friend Col. Richard M. Johnson [Laughter]...

Note to Self: From Council on Foreign Relations: The Future of Democracy Symposium: Session Two: Economics, Identity, and the Democratic Recession: Over 2001—2008 the furniture workers who had lost their jobs because of NAFTA and the China shock were getting new and better jobs in construction, building up Raleigh and Durham. Few unhappy about the economic transformation of the Carolinas until late 2008. Then, all of a sudden, it turned out that a great many securities rated AAA by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s in fact had no business being sold to anyone at any price at all; the Democrats did not prioritize a return to full employment; and the Republicans prioritized a non-return to full employment in the hope of weakening a Democratic president. Economic anxiety producing racial cleavage, yes. But it was political decisions, not trade or even technology that done it.

Note to Self: From Council on Foreign Relations: The Future of Democracy Symposium: Session Two: Economics, Identity, and the Democratic Recession: Look at me: Harvard Ph.D., Harvard B.A., Harvard B.A ancestors back to 1686 or whenever, Sidwell Friends School, and before that Cal Tech nursery school. But my wife grew up—first generation in her family to go to college—in a Portuguese neighborhood of Fall River, where everyone’s parents and grandparents worked in the textile mills. The textile mills of Fall River were stripped by Greensboro, North Carolina. They took the jobs away from the Portuguese millworker immigrants of Fall River. They stole that identity.

Note to Self: Confirmed dead: Melisandre, Jorah, Dolorous Edd, Theon, Lyanna, Beric, Rhaegal, Visserion, Night King...

Note to Self: Now down to 187 snoozed emails! Progress!! Excelsior!!!

Is it really INBOX ZERO if one has snoozed 365 messages? Asking for a friend...

Note to Self: It was 80 blocks south of here that Alexander Hamilton wrote to the middle class of New York that:

The history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy... feeling sensations of horror and disgust... intervals of felicity... overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage...

That is how the rest of the world views Britain and the United States in this age, the age of Brexit and Trump. And I haven’t even raised the strange spectacle of our modern-day Earl of Warwick, Rupert the Kingmaker. Few among middle classes abroad today think that the Anglo-Saxon democracies have it right, deliver the goods.

Hamilton and Madison had plans for republican remedies to the diseases of republican government. What would your remedies be?

Note to Self: Kevin Hassett has given up his internal opposition to Stephen Moore: Squawk Box: CEA Chair Kevin Hassett on the economy, retirement, Stephen Moore, and more...

Brad DeLong: "Job Guarantee" vs. "Functional Finance":

Job Guarantee: "Our policy is for the government to run a deficit to offer low-quality make-work low-pay jobs that suck"

Functional Finance: "Our policy is for the government to run a deficit so that the labor market is in balance with employers getting the most value for their money possible and workers getting the most money for their time and energy possible with unemployment reduced to a 'frictional' level'

Job Guarantee is really stupid on many levels. Functional Finance is really smart. Put me down for Functional Finance, Alex, and make it a true daily double...

Bases:

|++> = [+ |00> + |01> + |10> + |11>]      
|+-> = [+ |00> - |01> + |10> - |11>]       
|-+> = [+ |00> + |01> - |10> - |11>]     
|—-> = [+ |00> - |01> - |10> + |11>]

|00> = + |++> + |+-> + |-+> + |—->   
|01> = + |++> - |+-> + |-+> - |—->   
|10> = + |++> + |+-> - |-+> - |—->   
|11> = + |++> - |+-> - |-+> + |—->

1 Control Qubit:

|10> to |11>   
|11> to |10>

|++> = [+ |00> + |01> + |10> + |11>] to [+ |00> + |01> + |10> + |11>] = |++>   
|+-> = [+ |00> - |01> + |10> - |11>] to [+ |00> - |01> - |10> + |11>] = |-->   
|-+> = [+ |00> + |01> - |10> - |11>] to [+ |00> + |01> - |10> - |11>] = |-+>   
|--> = [+ |00> - |01> - |10> + |11>] to [+ |00> - |01> + |10> - |11>] = |+->

2 Control Qubits:

|110> to |111>   
|111> to |110>

|+++> = [+ |000> + |010> + |100> + |110> + |001> + |011> + |101> + |111>] to [+ |000> + |010> + |100> + |111> + |001> + |011> + |101> + |110>] = |+++>   
|+-+> = [+ |000> - |010> + |100> - |110> + |001> - |011> + |101> - |111>] to [+ |000> - |010> + |100> - |111> + |001> - |011> + |101> - |110>] = |+-+>    
|-++> = [+ |000> + |010> - |100> - |110> + |001> + |011> - |101> - |111>] to [+ |000> + |010> - |100> - |111> + |001> + |011> - |101> - |110>] = |-++>   
|—-+> = [+ |000> - |010> - |100> + |110> + |001> - |011> - |101> + |111>] to [+ |000> - |010> - |100> + |111> + |001> - |011> - |101> + |110>] = |--+>    
|++-> = [+ |000> + |010> + |100> + |110> - |001> - |011> - |101> - |111>] to [+ |000> + |010> + |100> - |110> - |001> - |011> - |101> + |111>] = (+ |++-> + |+--> + |-+-> - |—-->)   
|+--> = [+ |000> - |010> + |100> - |110> - |001> + |011> - |101> + |111>] to [+ |000> - |010> + |100> + |110> - |001> + |011> - |101> - |111>] = (+ |++-> + |+--> - |-+-> + |—-->)   
|-+-> = [+ |000> + |010> - |100> - |110> - |001> - |011> + |101> + |111>] to [+ |000> + |010> - |100> + |110> - |001> - |011> + |101> - |111>] = (+ |++-> - |+--> + |-+-> + |—-->)   
|—--> = [+ |000> - |010> - |100> + |110> - |001> + |011> + |101> - |111>] to [+ |000> - |010> - |100> - |110> - |001> + |011> + |101> + |111>] = (- |++-> + |+--> + |-+-> + |—-->)

John Judis and Catherine Rampell are the best people:

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)... symposium on 'The Future of Democracy' on Tuesday, April 9, 2019 at CFR’s headquarters at 58 East 68th Street in New York. You will be speaking on panel two, 'Economics, Identity, and the Democratic Recession', from 9:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. We have confirmed John Judis and Catherine Rampell to join you on this panel. We are still working to confirm a presider.

A session on the state of democratic government in different regions of the world will take place from 8:00 to 9:45 a.m., followed by your session at 10:00 a.m. A few minutes before the session begins, you will be seated onstage with your fellow panelists.

Note to Self: Still no professional Republicans daring to come out against Steve Moore's Fed nomination, save Greg Mankiw...

Note to Self: There are few enough things in the world or concerning the state of the (non-House) federal government to be thankful for these days. But one i that, despite his enormous deficits and unfitness for the office of president, Donald Trump is not a chickenhawk:

• Hoisted from the Archives: Why We Have Good Reason to Hate Chickenhawks

• Hoisted from the Archiyes: Why We Hate Chickenhawks: Selections from SFF Author David Drake

• Homer's Odyssey Blogging: Register that: As when thrushes... or doves fall into a net... the most pitiful death. And they writhed with their feet for a little space, but for no long while... They die the most pitiful death, and they writhe with their feet, but for no long while. That is what Telemakhos wanted. Nobody disagrees with him. And one of the subplots of the Odyssey is: Telmakhos—far-thrower, he who can cast the spear a great distance—grows up...

This has certainly been one crazifying Fed tightening cycle.

The 10-year nominal Treasury rate is only 0.2%-points higher than it was back in mid-2015, when liftoff appears imminent. the 10-year real rate is back where it started at 0.65, after having gone as low as zero and as high as 1.1%. And—unless it is triggered by strong good growth news—any further increase in the federal funds rate would invert the yield curve, which the Federal Reserve has decided not to do.

I really wish I had some idea of just what the Federal Reserve plans to do to fight the next recession, whenever the next recession come along. It has know since at least mid-2010 that the bond market believes that secular stagnation—at least in its effect on long-term interest rates—is a very real thing.

Presumably the Fed still believes that when the next recession comes it has one job: to drop the 10-year real Treasury rate so that expanded construction and exports can take up some of the emerging labor-market slack and so cushion the downturn. But I have no idea what policies it thinks it will pursue that will accomplish that...